16.1.05

We are in New York today, staying with a friend in Brooklyn. This afternoon, I will be attending 9 Parts of Desire at Manhattan Ensemble Theater, off Broadway. As I wrote earlier (9 Parts of Desire, December 13), a friend of mine from high school, Heather Raffo, has written and is starring in this one-woman play. It has received rave reviews, including most recently from Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal:

Heather Raffo, the Iraqi-American playwright and performer of "Nine Parts of Desire," directed by Joanna Settle and now playing Off Broadway at Manhattan Ensemble Theater, brings us closer to the inner life of Iraq than a thousand slick-surfaced TV reports. Yet her beautifully shaped one-woman play is a play, not a stodgily earnest piece of documentary theater, and therein lies its singular force and compulsion: It is persuasive precisely because it is beautiful.

I'll have some thoughts about the play and, hopefully, the Aztec exhibit at the Guggenheim, which I am also planning to see before heading back to Washington.